AT LAST. The Book of Mormon, thanks to Covid restrictions, has battled harder to descend into Glasgow than the current PM has to avoid accusations of undeniable duncery.

But at least the B of M – the world-wide hit show by South Park creators Matt Stone, Robert Lopez and Trey Parker – has won out,

Yet, you may wonder who would wish to see a musical with a storyline which examines the beliefs and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?

Mormonism, to most people, is the idea of young men in matching suits knocking gently on your door, and not getting upset when that same door is slammed in their face.

Mormonism is a Donny and Marie tithe-giving religion that has nice modern churches in Scotland populated by people who will tell you they love your outfit, even if the clothes you’re wearing are the first thing that came to hand after that drug-hazed all-nighter.

But does it offer a premise for a theatre musical?

Well, its creators are masters of satire. And the show features a certain number of expletives and hard-hitting humour.

Yet, of course, this show wouldn’t have become so successful if it had simply taken a chainsaw to the head that is the Mormon belief system and buried it in a shallow grave.

What the writers do cleverly is hold the religion’s unusualness up for examination: the unrelenting geniality of its elders who walk the globe, chatting on doors and hoping to convert people with dauntless amiability.

“We grew up with Mormons, and their MO is to beat you by being kinder than you and higher than you,” Parker explains.

The storyline follows two Mormon salesmen, the highly strung Elder Price and dumpy, lying Elder Cunningham, who are sent out to convert Uganda.

And so, we have a great narrative, a journey blocked by defiance, disbelief and dismay.

How can you convert African villagers into believing that this American wealth machine can work in a world in which people are struggling to feed themselves? How can you knock on doors made of wattle?

The writers make the most of this impossible task, and without giving too much away, we see Price and Cunningham sell their religion via cures for Aids, which involves having sex with amphibians. Yes. Honestly.

It’s naughty. It’s at times outrageous. It has great songs. Yet, it doesn’t mock God at all. Indeed, the 15m Mormons in Utah are said to “more or less support the idea of the show”, in fact taking ad space in many show programmes.

“It reveals we’re Christian, not a cult,” said one leading elder, who argues (very gently) the adage the there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Wonderful. So, we can all thank the god of all things theatrical that the Book of Mormon is now set to open in Glasgow.

Now, let’s pray for political deliverance.

The Book of Mormon, the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, November 9-26.

Don’t Miss: Escape. Escape onto a paradise island and allow your mind to turn to blue surf in the war-time love story – backed by Rodgers and Hammerstein music - that is South Pacific, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, October 25-29.

HOW can you not be intrigued by the wonderful line: “Welcome to The Bunker. The apocalypse is coming, and it’s coming for you bitch!” This is the marketing pitch for The Time Machine: A Radical Feminist Retelling. But will HG Wells be spinning in his grave?

A group of feminists are contemplating impending doom but asking if it’s too late to turn things around. Meanwhile, a traveller lands in the year 802,701 to discover the fate of future humans and tries to unravel how it came to this.

Wells wrote the 1895 classic, in which a Victorian gentleman leaps ahead to find humanity has evolved into a two-tier society with the privileged Eloi class on top, and beneath, the Morlocks – doomed to subsist in the darkness. It was a prescient allegory.

Now Melanie Jordan and Caitlin Skinner of feminist theatre company Jordan and Skinner have taken the tale and re-set it in a story of women’s battle for survival. “HG Wells was trying to make a comment on capitalism,” says Jordan. “He was saying, ‘Look everyone – if we keep going, we’re going to have this division,’ and issuing a warning to his fellow early capitalists. He was responding to his current situation, and we are responding to ours. The Victorians were striving in the name of progress, which at the time was a very cool thing. Now we know industrial progress has burnt the planet. We need to change what progress means without dismissing everything that’s happened already.”

Can a feminist Utopian future emerge? Skinner adds: “The characters are trying to balance their feelings of doom and despair with hope and agency in their ability to change things.” It’s more than likely that HG will be applauding both the sentiment and the content of this hugely imaginative play, featuring a cast of four.

The Tron Theatre, Glasgow, October 26-28